Losing Myself
by PhoenixFire Lia
Summary: Yamato narrates what happens when fame takes over his life and the lives of the other Teen-Age Wolves. Language, general angst, and mild Sorato.


Losing Myself

            I hadn't realized how far this would take me. This whole thing's gotten out of my hands. None of it's me anymore. In a single pen stroke I signed away my life, my freedom, and my soul. I didn't realize. I didn't realize the damage I'd done until it was too late. Stupid fool. I'm not even me anymore. I can't even recognize the face in the mirror, the voice. I don't even own my name anymore. Who am I?

~*~

            I used to be my own person. I used to be a lot of things. Not anymore, though. Every time something good happened in my life, something horrible had to happen and compensate for it. My life was perfect until I was seven. I had my little world, everything revolved in it just so, nothing out of place. Then my parents divorced. I went with my father; my mother took my brother. I had no world anymore; it was just me, fending for myself. My father told me it was useless crying over something that couldn't be changed, so I never cried again. He never seemed to care about me, never home, always out late working or with his friends smoking and drinking, forgetting he had a young son to care for. It was my job to cook and clean and still manage to keep my grades up and be socially active. And I was only seven. My father gave me a harmonica for my birthday that year, told me I wasn't old enough to play anything other than a harmonica or a kazoo. I couldn't do anything with that stupid hunk of metal for at least three years and it frustrated me near to tears. 

            My life changed again at eleven. I had been shipped off to summer camp, with the strict instructions to watch my little brother, whom I hadn't seen since Kami-sama knew when. I made a few friends, one of them being Yagami Taichi, some hotshot soccer player from school. Little did I know we would be the best of friends and the worst of enemies for the rest of our lives. Anyway, this was that Digital World year, that year I found out I was appointed the Chosen Child of Friendship, which I thought was some kind of joke, and the year I met Gabumon. I can't explain exactly what Gabumon is, other than friend, guidance councilor, guardian, font of wisdom, and the reason why I haven't killed myself yet. It was also the year I met Sora, whom I loved dearly and still do, though at that point in time she had a mad crush on Taichi. No matter, the furthest thing from my mind back then was love. 

            But what does that have to do with the loss of my soul? All of that culminated into my freshman year of high school. Thus began the year of the Wolf, and my transformation into something of a heartless monster. 

~*~

            A freshman at Odaiba High School, I had learned to play the bass guitar and had the meager aspirations to start a band. After school one of those afternoons where my brother was off fighting the Digimon Kaiser and I was on reserves, I came across the humble beginnings of another band. They weren't bad, but they lacked a bass player, a vocalist, and songs. That's where I came in. So I gave up what little social life I had to join this pathetic 'band.' And the Teen-Age Wolves were born. 

            What would follow were many long nights of rehearsals, followed by even longer nights of frustration, trying to write music. Nothing sounded right, nothing ever sounded right, but they were my own lyrics, my own music. I shed so much blood, sweat, and a few tears into their creation that I'll be damned if that's not my own work. We barely had one song in the beginning, but at that time, one was enough. We were little more than a garage band, pulled together by my guidance, kept together by our devotion to the music and our friendships. Back then, it was fun, rehearsals were never something to be dreaded. We started getting gigs at coffeehouses and little nightclubs. Taichi and Sora would help the four of us plaster the school with posters on those nights, anything to get our publicity to more than our friends and my brother's junior high friends. Obviously it worked. The name Teen-Age Wolves spread through the Tokyo districts like wildfire. A few of our coffeehouse concerts were shut down by the police because we were violating the safety codes by having way too many admirers. So we pooled our money once every couple of months and rented out a small concert stadium. As I write this, I realize that I keep talking about 'we' and you probably have no idea who 'we' are.  

            Akira was the brains behind the band. He was the guy who spent his nights organizing everything, every fundraiser, every concert night, hell, he even color-coded our schedule on a rotating shift for who would have to pay for takeout. Not to mention he plays a mean guitar. Akira's also the guy I count on to keep the band running when I have to run off for 'emergencies.' He's one of my best friends and I love him like a brother. 

            Yutaka and Takashi, keyboardist and drummer, respectively, are the wild men. I know this upsets the boy band logistics. You know what I mean. Every boy band has their stalwart leader, their wild party boy, their heartbreaker, and the little cute one. Rather, we have a pair of mental cases, Akira, who I guess is our stalwart leader, and me…I apparently fall between heartbreaker and little cute one. As I was saying, Yutaka and Takashi are the ones to rag on me when I'm in a bad mood, the ones who think we should be suspended from hooks in the ceiling or do a concert in our boxers. But they get things done, so I shouldn't complain. 

            And then there's me, Yamato. As I explained earlier, I do basically everything else. I write at least ninety percent of the music, sing it, play the bass, and bring in the fangirls. Mimi, a dear friend of mine and Japanese confidante in America, says that more girls she knows are obsessed with the band because I'm "so unbelievably sexy." Whatever. I'm guessing it's because you don't see too many blue-eyed blonde Japanese waifs, now do you? I don't talk. That's my 'quirk.' I like the silence, I really hate making a spectacle of myself…and yet I'm in a rock band. Odd, isn't it?

            Yeah, so that was your impromptu introduction to us, now back to everything that got us to where we are now. The little concerts weren't so little anymore, and I found myself devoting more and more time to the band than I originally intended. I hired Koushiro and Miyako to do our sound mixing for the concerts, and that got them sucked into the growing void that was my life. One night as I was up at four in the morning pulling together a half-shit term paper that was due the next day I realized that I had become my father, absolutely never home. The house looked like it had sank into the tenth level of Hell. By now I had started going out with Sora, and I didn't even see her all that much. I tried redeeming myself by sending her flowers or a card or at least an email once a week, apologizing for not calling and all that lousy boyfriend stuff. Being Sora, she understood completely and said that I could take all the time I needed to be Ishida Yamato, superstar, and she would wait for me to get back to who I was, just plain old Yamato. She'd have to wait quite a while. 

~*~

            Somewhere in my sophomore year we signed a record deal with the same label that Ai Maeda and a bunch of the other really huge J-Pop stars are contracted with. Though we got a single that went platinum in less than a week…and it's a single…I had to pay dearly. I didn't get to take Sora to homecoming like I promised. Taichi did in my place, and they said they had fun, but it wasn't the same. And then, like everything had before, my world shattered. 

"You want us to go where?"

Mr. Mamoru, our agent, nodded. "Los Angeles California, Yamato-sama. You and the Wolves are scorching the international charts over in America. You four would make it big! You'd be bigger than the Spice Girls, trust me!"

Takashi and Yutaka were all for it, Akira and I were unsure. The four of us decided we would discuss it and call Mamoru when we had met an agreement. 

            "Ishida, are you out of your mind? Think of what this would mean for the band!"

I sighed heavily. "I know, I know, Takashi. But at what cost? I mean, the band is important to me, but I can't keep putting it first. I have my family to think about, and my education. We're only sophomores."

"Yeah, but half the boy bands in America got their starts as sophomores," Yutaka put in. 

Akira shook his head. "Yamato's right. We're pushing everyone away for the sake of this band and I can't keep it up. Hell, I don't think I've slept in my own bed once this month we've been on the road doing stuff so much."

Takashi frowned. In all instances, this is a sign that he's hatching some great scheme that we should be very wary of. 

"Shouldn't we at least try? I mean, wouldn't it be in the best interests of the band to go out there and at see if anything happens? And if it does, then hey, you know? We're international superstars. And if it doesn't, then we can always go back to the Barnes and Noble beat."

Akira and I exchanged glances, slowly nodding. Sighing again, another one of my trademarks, sighing. Along with fiddling with my hair, which, someone once told me, was a sign of insecurity. That's an understatement if I ever saw one!

"All right, we'll give it a shot. But we can't forget who we are, all right? We will not let some big Los Angeles mogul manipulate us into something we aren't. Promise?"

"WE'RE GOING TO L.A.!"

            But they did forget. All of them. Even me. What once was is no more. Ishida Yamato, superstar, was changed into something far worse and the last shreds of my true humanity died somewhere over the Pacific. 

~*~

            So, here I am. Big L.A. superstar. Seventeen years old, legal American citizen, and completely miserable. Everything's changed. The guys have changed, I've changed. Nobody would recognize me. And sometimes I wonder if Sora would even still want me. She told me she would wait for Yamato, but I told you, he died. I'm sitting in the hotel room right now, surrounded by the many gifts of my adoring multinational admirers. You, who've been ever faithful to me, probably don't even know what's happened since. It's not pretty. Really, it isn't. 

            Mamoru introduced us to some big-shot American producers, the puppetmasters behind *NSYNC and Britney Spears and all those goddamned American pop stars I vowed to never be. 

"First things first. The name of the band, it's not really fitting the big picture."

"The name stays or we walk," I snapped. The producers nodded. 

"Then we'll take out the hyphen. In America, 'teenage' is one word."

Yutaka sighed. "I liked the hyphen."

So now we're the Americanized Teenage Wolves. It doesn't stop there. 

"Nobody can pronounce your names. That has to be fixed."

They kept Akira's name the way it was. I don't remember, nor do I care what they did to Yutaka and Takashi. All I know is I now go by Matt. Matt. One ungainly American syllable. 

Then they said they didn't like the altogether image of the band, that we looked too Japanese. And we were shipped off to a day spa to be completely redone. I swore that if my hair was touched somebody would die. They cut it. They highlighted it. They said it was a masterpiece. It wasn't me. They wanted to change my eye color. I asked them what was wrong with blue. Nothing, they told me, blue was a perfectly fine color, but it wasn't the right blue. They were going to put color contacts in. I told them if they did I would have a tragic accident that would ruin my singing voice permanently. Still the same blue. 

            Well now, Matt and his Americanized Teenage Wolves had to have a CD, fast. They told me I couldn't write my own music anymore. It was too flowery, too nice. It didn't have the sex appeal they wanted. So they hired some ghostwriter to write for us. After a recording session they played back the three-minute song that had taken a nine-hour session. Played it back using a synthesizer to alter our voices because we didn't sound American enough. Now Matt and his Americanized Teenage Wolves sang the Americanized filth that was required of them, and their own voices weren't good enough. 

            I knew I should have told Yutaka and Takashi no, should have stuck with my original decision. Because now we're trapped, trapped in a never-ending downward spiral of lies. The guys aren't the same anymore. I'm surprised the tabloids don't know about this shit, it's enough to do a full issue on just us. Yutaka smokes. Takashi drinks. Akira has a thing for hookers. And me? I'm supposed to be taking Prozac for my depression, but somehow I always end up finding the prescription bottles emptied and the refill forms in charred piles in the trash. I told you, nothing is the same. We aren't the cute, happy-go-lucky little Tokyo garage band. So, back to the present and the current condition of Matt, that someone I'm supposed to be. 

~*~

            Hotel room, yeah. I keep the lights off, the doors shut. Television isn't on because I'm afraid of seeing 'Matt' on it. I hate him. Radio isn't on for the same reasons. Had explicit instructions to stay off the phone, was supposed to be waiting for an important call. Warner Brothers wanted to put 'Matt' in a movie. I don't care anymore. Akira wants me to go out with him to a strip club, I told him go off and have fun. Takashi and Yutaka want me to go barhopping. I've come down with something. I'm not allowed to say anything Japanese anymore. In the few months we've been here, I've been brainwashed into a stupid American pop star. 

A/N: Don't think I'm dissing Americans (seeing as how I am one), please. This is just Ma…I mean Yamato and his angst. 

            I decided enough was enough. I needed freedom. I needed to resurrect that long-dead part of me, the one who could care less whether Carson Daly wanted a talk or Rosie O'Donnell booked me for Friday. With another trademarked heavy sigh, I got up the balls to pick up the phone. 

"Moshi-moshi, Takaishi-ke, Takeru desu. You had better have a good reason for calling me this early or…"

"Good morning, little brother."

There was the sound of childish laughter. "No, really, who is this?"

"I didn't think you'd recognize the sound of my voice, Keru-chan," I stated despondently, half in English, half in Japanese. 

"Hey you, I don't know who you think you are, but nobody but my big brother calls me that!"

"Oh Takeru, have you really forgotten me? Am I really that dead to you, to everyone?"

"Look, I think you've got the wrong number pal," my brother growled. I was white-knuckling the phone. 

"I guess I do." 

What have I done? Kami-sama, what have I done? My own brother doesn't even know me anymore. I suddenly feel sick to my stomach. My worst fears came true. I really have lost myself. I don't know who I am anymore. 

            Panicking, I turned the lights on in the room, ran to the nearest mirror. The face staring back at me wasn't mine. Just my eyes. Just the eyes that always betray me, always show the pain. With a strangled cry I slammed a fist into the mirror, shattering it. Blood trickled down my knuckles, I didn't care. I was sobbing now, sobbing hysterically like I had wanted to for countless years. I wanted to wash myself clean of the Matt image that had me trapped. 

~*~

            I got a phone call the next afternoon that they needed me in New York to be on some late night talk show. Just me. Not the whole troupe of Teenage Wolves. I did as they told me, got on the private jet and headed off to the Big Apple, falling back into the Matt role. I thought about a lot of things on that plane ride. My family, my friends, Sora, the fact that after about a week in America not a single one of them emailed me or called me. I thought about my own fate. While I was in New York I thought I'd go be a tourist and catch a Broadway show. Went and saw Les Misérables. Heard the actor playing Jean Valjean state a line that was so true to my life that it stopped my heart for a minute or two. 

And must my name until I die be no more than an alibi? Must I lie? 

Other than the whole being a French convict part, this man was, in a sense, me. He was pretending to be something he wasn't, running from the truth for years. I was doing the same thing. Bought a copy of the soundtrack after the show. I'm addicted to it. 

            I got through the interview all right. They wanted me to do an impromptu musical performance, handed me some random guitar and asked me to sing. Sing I did. My fingers flew over the frets, playing out chords I hadn't played in ages. The words from one of my old 'image songs' came tumbling from my lips, my voice free from the restraints of that stupid synthesizer, free from the heavy language rolling sluggishly on my tongue. I felt as though I were home again, sitting in my bedroom in Odaiba, playing the guitar for Gabumon or Takeru. For a few fleeing moments, Matt had been shoved aside for Yamato, the real me, the one Sora was still waiting for, if she was still waiting. I had stunned the audience and everyone in the nation who heard me that night. The producers were enraged that I had defied them and their Americanized image of me. I told them the truth, they had asked for spur-of-the-moment and it was the first song I had thought of. I was warned to never utter another Japanese syllable again unless I wanted to end up broken in the gutter. Right now I'd prefer the gutter to this caged life. 

~*~

            This morning they told me Yutaka had been taken to the hospital for drug overdose. They said he'd be okay, but he'd need to go into rehab for a while. Turns out he was the one who kept swiping my medication. Figures. The three remaining Wolves met not long after I got the news, just to kind of mull things over. Takashi looked like he had one bitch of a hangover. 

"Hey guys."

That was all it took for them to explode. Well, Akira at least. 

"What are we doing? What the fuck are we doing? Look at us, just look at us! Yutaka's gone and overdosed on Yamato's Prozac, Takashi's piss drunk and I'm a porn freak! I don't know about the rest of you, but this was not my intention for the Teen-Age Wolves, with the fucking hyphen!"

"Shit, Akira, not so loud. That's it, I'm never drinking again as long as I live," Takashi groaned. 

"Akira's right, though," I pointed out. "We've been miserable ever since we got here and we've just been drowning our sorrows in sin."

"Not you, Ishida. You're the only one who kept it together," Takashi sighed. 

I shook my head. "If I had kept it together, would I be on Prozac? Would I have punched a mirror in and had a nervous breakdown? Nah, we've all been messed with."

"Maybe that's why our families gave up on us after a week," Akira muttered.  

            "It's going to take some time before Yutaka's out of rehab. I say in the meantime we work on our next album."

"Kami-sama, are you out of your mind, Ishida?! Haven't you been listening?" 

"Akira, the yelling really isn't helping my hangover."

I shook my head, going into a desk drawer and pulling out a book of blank sheet music and a pencil. 

"This time, we're doing things our way. The way the real Teen-Age Wolves handled it, not their fake American clones. I thought we could change up a few of our old songs, remix them so the rhythms fit the English but keep in the original text underneath. And I've got the chords for about a half dozen other songs that just need lyrics. What do you say, guys? We resurrect the old Teen-Age Wolves and kick the collective asses of the Americanized ones?"

Takashi cuffed me. "Now _that's _the Ishida Yamato I'm talking 'bout!" 

It was a deceitful plan, undermining our producers. But if you look at things, we really had no other choice. We were bound to our contracts, and I think it would be more dishonest to just quit and upset millions of people who believed in us…or at least the us they thought we were. I wasn't sure how we were going to pull off our little scheme, but we were going to do it as a band. 

~*~

            It _had _taken Yutaka a while to get out of rehab, but that was understandable. I had gone to see him a few days after he was admitted, explained our little plan. He was all for it, showing a little of the daring, fun Yutaka he used to be. I devoted the rest of my free time to writing music, changing our old songs without really changing them, writing new ones, all with the same integrity and base values the band originally stood for. It reminded me of why we chose the name, Teen-Age Wolves. Taichi always gave me a hard time about it, said it was because I was forever the 'lone wolf.' I continually had to point out that he was, as usual, incorrect. The name came from the fact that we, as a collective band, worked as a pack. We were strongest together, and no one member was stronger than the others, though the guys did say I was the lead wolf. Yeah, and I was leading my pack into dangerous territory with our plans for the album. 

            The next board meeting with the producers was the twenty-ninth. April the twenty-ninth. My eighteenth birthday. Had it really been near two years since I left home? No wonder everyone had forgotten about me. I hadn't tried calling home since that day with Takeru, and though I checked my email every day, still not a single word from any of my friends. It was a little sickening to think that my birthday was the day that we would challenge those who held dominion over us. It almost frightened me. Almost. 

~*~

            Heinrich, the American producer and the devil that lays claim on our souls, sat back in his chair and glared at us with dark, glittery eyes. I hate board meetings. So very suit and tie. I mean, I know you hardly ever catch me in a standard pair of blue jeans unless everything else is in the laundry, but I hate looking so formal. 

"Well, barring the little _mishap _we had regarding Mr. Tsuzuki, we're doing quite well. Profits are still up, and popularity-wise the Teenage Wolves have edged out past your standard boy bands. Since we took the last few months off for *ahem* _recuperation, _I believe we need to get right back to work and start the next album. Now, Mackenzie's written some new songs and I think we have a few real gems here."

I swallowed, trying to keep the Mothra-sized butterflies in my stomach where they belonged, and stood. 

"Ah, Mr. Heinrich, the band and I have a few, um, suggestions for this album."

He flashed the four of us one of those really fake, toothy grins that imply _that's nice, but I don't want to hear a word from your mouths. _

"Matt, baby, sweetheart, you do remember that your contracts clearly state that…"

Akira stood now, placing a hand on my shoulder. "But Mr. Heinrich, Yamato's…"

"Akira, darling, watch your language," Heinrich said in his usual oily tone. 

Akira drew an aggravated sigh, rolling his eyes. "_Matt's _been working his tail off writing music for the new album. We kind of wanted to, ah…"

"To put a new flavor in our sound, ya know?" Takashi suggested, getting out of his chair as well. "Matt has a bunch of killer ideas."

"And we agree with him," Yutaka added, joining us. "We looked it all over last night, it's got some tight rhythms going on!"

Heinrich and the other American producers at the meeting were looking quite perturbed. Mamoru, our manager since day one of the Teen-Age Wolves' professional career, seemed to be pleased. 

            "Boys, this is all well and good, but the public doesn't want to hear Japanese music, they want words they can sing along with!" 

"Ah, but that's the beauty of it, Matt wrote it all in English with the Japanese as background base rhythms," Takashi pitched. I pulled out the book I'd been recording the text in. 

"If you want to look it over, I've got it all here."

Heinrich was seething. It was outright mutiny. "No! Your contracts state that you are unable to write any of the songs produced. That contract is legal, binding, and holds you to your words! You will sing what is given to you, and that's that!"

Akira whipped out a printout. "Mr. Heinrich, according to Los Angeles law, that is fraud. Now, we could prosecute you in a court of law. And maybe we should also hold you accountable for tampering with prescription drugs as well."

"So it was _you _who kept burning my forms! I need that medicine!" I hollered. It took all three of the others to keep me from tearing that bastard's throat out with my bare hands. 

Heinrich turned white, then red, and then a deep shade of purple. If I didn't kill him first, then maybe he'd die of apoplexy. 

"Get out! Get out of my sight! You're fired, every single one of you! You'll never work in this town again!" 

            We beat a hasty retreat before Heinrich could throw the conference table at us, Mamoru following us out the door. The five of us met in the Starbucks next to the lobby. Isn't it amazing how there's a Starbucks on every corner? Kami! 

"That went pretty well," Yutaka sighed. "Some birthday present, ne, Yamato-sama?"

"You said it." 

Mamoru shook his head. "Boys, I'm terribly sorry for all of this. I hadn't realized what a crook Dieter was until after you signed those contracts. What do you say we catch the first flight back to Tokyo and you sign on again with J-Pop?"

Everyone looked at me. "What? Why are you all staring at me?!"

"You're the boss, man. It's your call," Takashi stated, juggling a straw in his hands. 

"If…if we do sign on with J-Pop, what would we be held accountable for?"

"It's going to be just as much hard work. However, the label will not force you to do anything you do not want. Therefore, you will need to provide your own music, and you will have to change those hideous American names to something much more pronounceable for our Japanese tongues. And your images? I don't know about you, but I certainly think these ones have got to go," our manager pointed out, folding his hands in front of him. 

"I say we go for it. What's the worst that could happen?" Yutaka whispered. 

Akira groaned. "Not this again."

"Mamoru-sama, the Teen-Age Wolves would be glad to."

"Yamato! Are you crazy?! Don't tell me you've forgotten what happened the last time you agreed to something like this!" they shouted at me. I smiled, pulling an orange prescription bottle out of my pockets and setting it on the table. 

"Not crazy, on medication. That, and I'll do anything to never hear the name 'Matt Ishida' again."

"_WE'RE GOING…HOME!"_

Those words had never sounded better. 

~*~

            Some several hours later, we were back in Tokyo, where we belonged. Mamoru handed me his business card, told us to get in touch with him after we'd gotten settled and remembered what it sounded like to not have to speak English. When I got back to the apartment, I found it locked, Otou-san at work as usual. In the two years I had been gone, it hadn't been changed at all. I tossed my bags onto my bed, scribbled down a note and stuck it to the refrigerator, put my shoes back on, and ran out into the sunlight, hoping the gang would be around. After all, it was, technically, still my birthday. In the old days we usually hung out in Odaiba Park, devising ways to defeat the newest foe threatening our world and that alternate Digital one. And so, following my instincts, I made my way over there, hoping that my instincts weren't thrown off by Americanization. 

            "We really should call him or something, it _is _his birthday."

"I don't care! He went off and left us! I'll bet he's having some big fancy party with all of his superstar friends and doesn't give a damn as to what we think!"

"No matter how old you get, you still act like you're ten, Onii-chan."

Though their voices had matured in the past couple of years, the immature squabbling sounded just as it had when I had left. Man, they looked so much older, even Iori! My brother had shot up like a weed in the time that I'd been gone, and now that I look at things, it seems like more than two years had passed while I had been absent. 

"Demo, Taichi…" Mimi's voice. What was Mimi doing back in Japan? She left to live in New York long before I even took up guitar. I had missed a lot more than I thought. 

"Onegai, Taichi-kun?" Sora. She was so beautiful, so grown up looking. Had she waited all this time for me, or was she spoken for? Hey wait, what am I doing standing here staring at all of them? 

"I told you, he's probably forgotten all about us by now!"

"I'm sorry, am I interrupting anything?" I asked wryly, casually walking over to the group of Chosen Children. Eleven pairs of eyes glared hostilely at me. 

            "Yeah, you are. Just who are you to be talking like that?" Taichi snapped. 

"Why, I'm hurt, Taichi. I go out of my way to get back here just as fast as I possibly can, and you go and yell at me. Eighteen years of friendship coming down to this, huh?"

"Dude, you're off your rocker," Daisuke proclaimed. 

Ken nodded. "A few champions short of a jogress, if you ask me."

"Look, all I wanted to know if you had heard the news about the Teen-Age Wolves?"

Everybody stopped stock-still, staring at me like I had just proclaimed I was Vamdemon. 

"No, what news?" Takeru asked, his baby blue eyes wide. 

I grinned. "Guess they haven't released it to the press yet. Cancelled their American contracts, signed new ones with J-Pop. I suppose this means they'll be coming back here."

They all started cheering and dancing around excitedly. I started to leave. Don't worry, it's all part of my master plan. Sora started running after me. 

            "Wait! How did you know that, if the press hadn't released it yet?" 

I turned, still grinning like a fool. "You said you'd wait until Ishida Yamato came home. Are you still waiting, Sora?"

She screamed, running at me full out. The others hurried to see if she was all right. 

"Yamato! Kami-sama, I've missed you so much!" she cried, throwing her arms around me and nearly knocking me over. 

"You idiot! You could have just said you were back to begin with!" Taichi bellowed. 

"Ah, but where's the fun in that?" 

~*~

            Well, everything worked out in the end. Thanks to the American tutors that had followed us around for two years, I didn't have to stay back and entered my senior year at high school without a problem. The band and I took a few months off, then got back together and started up again as if America had never happened. Turns out the fans liked us better as the Teen-Age Wolves rather than those Americanized phonies. Sora and I picked up on our relationship like nothing had happened, and we plan on getting married sooner or later. I told my brother about calling him that night and he was absolutely mortified. But most importantly, I got my soul back, and I got to be Ishida Yamato, superstar, and Ishida Yamato, average teenager who saves the world on a regular basis but still has time for an active social life. I don't have to question my identity anymore, and I'm thankful for that. I think those years taught me that you have to be true to yourself. And that I have to live with the bad and the good, even though I have anyways. Most importantly, I learned the price fame has, and no matter what ends up happening with the band and me, I won't ever forget how much it cost me. 

~*~

**_All right, so it wasn't as angsty as Ken's. _**

**That's because you wrote it. **

**_What's that imply?_**

**That I'm the author and you're the muse and you're not gonna forget that. **

**_You're so mean to me. _**

**Yeah, yeah, save your tears.__**


End file.
